Res
Rinka
The path the will-o’-the-wisp followed through the woods wound up and down, left and right, twisting and turning dozens of times. Rinka sighed with relief once they finally made it into a clearing—her bed awaited.
Or so she thought. In the clearing, there was a roaring bonfire, a dozen or more figures dancing to a lively tune played by a band of…fairies? Except they were large, Fulling-sized, and was that a Fulling-sized hobgoblin too?
Rinka turned to Drystan, whose attention was being sought by one of the very large fairies. The fairy appeared normal, so could they have shrunk? Rinka was looking around, trying to get her bearings, when from across the clearing, she heard her name in a familiar voice.
“Rinka?”
There she was. The very person Rinka had been traveling to meet. Her former and future roommate, Alison.
Alison rushed towards her, arms outstretched. Rinka ran to meet her, her exhaustion temporarily forgotten in the joy of reuniting with a dear friend.
“My Gods, Rinka, are you alright?” asked Alison as she pulled away. “You look…”
“Terrible?” offered Rinka.
“No, no, I wasn’t going to say—”
“But you were thinking it,” said Rinka. She laughed, and Alison did too.
Alison looked well—her dark hair was longer than when she’d left Arcas Dyrne, and she had maybe put on a little weight, making her appear stronger and healthier than when she’d left. Her blue eyes were as bright as ever, although they were now full of concern. “What happened? Where is the carriage? How did you get here? What time is it? Did you miss us in town? How long have we been gone?”
“We didn’t quite make it to the carriage,” said Rinka. She shivered in the cool night air. Alison looked at her wrinkled dress and bare arms and removed her overcoat, a well-made tweed number that was too tight for Rinka but felt nice draped over her shoulders, and she led Rinka closer to the bonfire.
“We?” asked a man who had followed them. He wore a riding outfit that nearly matched Alison’s with the colors reversed, and Rinka recognized his handsome face from the sketch Alison had sent her.
“You must be Mr. Ainsley,” said Rinka, offering her hand to shake.
“Keir,” he said. And then he spoke over her shoulder to someone coming up behind her: “Ah, here comes trouble.”
Rinka turned to see Drystan approaching. She looked between the men and there was no doubt about it—they knew each other.
“Ainsley. I was wondering how long it would be before I ran into you.”
“Come here, you old knocker-waffle,” said Keir. He held out a hand to shake, which Drystan took and pulled him into a hug which was half hug, half hitting each other on the back repeatedly.
“Knocker-waffle?” asked Alison.
“A story for another time,” said Keir. “Alison Lennox, allow me to introduce you to His Royal Highness Prince Idris of the Kingdoms of Loegria and Wilderise, Duke of Whatsits and Earl of Wherefores, Lord over all of us peons, and heir to the throne.”
“Oh,” said Alison, hearing the joke in Keir’s words but reading something in his face that Rinka did not understand, “you’re serious.”
She curtsied to Drystan.
Rinka laughed.
Keir looked from Rinka to Drystan, seeing something in either their relation or attire. “Oh no,” he said. “Don’t tell me you’ve been Drystan Droswyn again.” Keir’s eyes were sympathetic when they returned to Rinka. “I don’t blame you for not realizing. Who would look at this wanker and think prince, after all?” He slapped Drystan’s arm playfully.
Drystan turned to Rinka, his expression sheepish. “Well, I guess the game is up. I’m sorry I didn’t get to hear your third question—”
“Wait,” said Rinka. “You’re joking. All of you are joking with me, right?”
“Friends, a toast to our royal guest!” The fairy who had greeted Drystan clapped their hands together, and several other fairies brought around trays filled with glasses of various sizes and shapes holding a variety of liquids.
Their royal guest.
“I can explain,” said Drystan—Idris? Prince Idris—softly. He took a pair of glasses from a tray and offered one to Rinka.
Rinka stood still. She was so tired. Could this be a dream? Maybe she’d fallen asleep during their walk.
“Rinka?”
Did Loegria have a prince? Yes, she seemed to remember it did, but… “Didn’t you abdicate the throne or something?”
“Not yet,” he said. He took her hand—she was still too dazed to respond—and pressed the glass into it, seeing their host waiting.
“To the prince! Slàinte!”
“Slàinte!” the crowd responded. Rinka took the glass to her lips reflexively and took a sip. It was strong, dark whisky, and it felt like fire in her throat.
She looked it at the drink and then at Drystan—no, Idris.
And then she downed the entire glass.
“Easy,” said Idris. “They make it strong in this part of the world—”
“It puts hair on your chest!” said Keir. He was laughing, his arm around Alison, who was looking at him as if he was the greatest thing in the entire world.
“I told you,” came a familiar voice in her head. “I told you that you were a fool, girl. A prince! A common orc and a prince. Isn’t that a laugh?”
“No,” said Rinka out loud. “It’s not funny.”
“Rinka? Who are you talking to?” asked Alison. Then she pulled another fairy to the side. “Can we get something to eat for my friend? And perhaps a place for her to lie down?”
The fairy flitted away, careful to keep its wings close in the crowd.
“You like him. Don’t try to deny it, girl; I know how your foolish heart beats. Now what are you going to do?”
The fairy returned in mere moments with an incredible-looking plate of food. Rinka took it and allowed the fairy to lead her to a small table off to the side.
There, Idris joined her with his own plate.
“Fairy food,” said Idris. “Wonderful stuff.” He dug in immediately, starting with a little cup with red and white layers of some kind of jam and cream. “Cranachan,” he said. “It must be raspberry season already. Here, give it a try.”
He took Rinka’s spoon and dipped it into the cup. “The fairies know our tastes, but they don’t know if we’ll like something we haven’t tried yet. You’ll love it,” he said. He held the spoon out for her to eat from.
A few minutes earlier, she would have let him feed her. They had gone through something together that had broken down most of the usual boundaries she felt with strangers, although Rinka wasn’t prone to strong boundaries anyway, if she was being honest.
But now…this man before her wasn’t the same man she’d followed into the woods. He couldn’t be.
“If you’re the prince, what were you doing in a third-class carriage?”
Idris put the spoon back into the cup. “Drystan Droswyn makes it easier for me to travel. I didn’t want to travel with the rest of the family—in fact, they don’t even know I’m coming—so it’s easier if I just pretend to be someone else.”
“No one recognizes you?”
“No, not usually. It’s amazing how little people notice someone down on their luck. Most people, at least.” He raised his eyes to meet hers, a smile tugging at his lips.
Rinka considered it. Few people had so much as looked at Idris during their voyage together.
The pieces fit together. The ticket-taker who let him stay on the train—perhaps an arrangement he’d worked out if he truly did regularly travel in disguise. The pirates who might have been there for him, and why he wouldn’t let them capture him—he would have made a valuable hostage, that was for sure. He’d told her he was well known once, but not anymore. And it was true; Rinka hadn’t heard anything about the prince in years. “Your family—they’re coming here, too? The royal family?”
“Yes,” said Idris. “My father, my sister, and the rest of the court. It’s all part of some plot of his to develop Wilderise. A fool’s errand, I’d say. The people here are tough as nails. He’d have an easier time negotiating with a brick wall. But yes, they’re coming, and I wasn’t invited per se. I’ve been out of courtly life for a long while, and I’ve been cooped up in my office at the University for even longer. But I decided I wanted to see it. Wilderise, my father’s pitiful attempts at diplomacy, and most of all, my sister. We’re not exactly on the best of terms, but I’ve missed her nonetheless.”
“And you’re all dragons,” said Rinka. It explained the ears, at least, and the other non-human traits. The magic. “Wait—can you fly? Could you have flown to shore?”
She wasn’t angry at Idris for the deception in general: after all, he’d admitted to being someone else early on, and he’d even given her an opportunity to know the truth outright. But if he could have flown them to shore and didn’t, and they nearly died…
“We are all dragons, yes. My mother as well, although what I told you about her—about her leaving at the first opportunity—was true. She’s from a land in the Far East, and she’s a different type of dragon. My sister and I inherited our father’s form. I can still take that form at will, but no. I can’t fly. Not anymore.”
Rinka could hear a wound in his voice, and then he held up his arm to show her another one.
“The Curse of the Air,” he said. “An enemy of my father’s gifted me with it on my twelfth birthday. It doesn’t look like much in this form, and it doesn’t stop me from doing much either. Except the one thing I loved: flying.”
On his elbow, there was a series of small scars. “My father hired every healer and doctor and cleric in this land and many others. But no one could set it right. Over time, he grew to resent me. The heir of his house and his throne, and the first ruler in generations who would not be able to take to the skies. Then the situation happened with the girl I was engaged to, and he began to show an interest in my sister, Ceri; started talking about her taking the throne. I went to university—it was there that I got to know Keir, although we’d known each other for years from court events—and I decided to stay on as a professor. It was easier to stay out of the way. My father and I had it out at the Winter Feast two years ago. He explained that he expects me to abdicate the throne, and while I have no interest in being king, I do have an interest in remaining a thorn in his side as long as he lives, so I refused. I haven’t seen anyone in my family since.”
Rinka understood strained family relations. Her mother’s voice haunted her every thought, after all. And she could understand his desire for a different life than the one he’d been born into; she felt that way often as well.
Maybe there was something of the man she’d gotten to know in him after all.
“So you’re here for the summer, then?” she asked as casually as she could manage.
“Yes, and I have an idea about that,” he said. Rinka suppressed a yawn, but it didn’t escape his attention. “But it can wait until the morning. Come, try a bite of this cranachan. It will give you sweet dreams.”
He held out the spoon again, and this time, Rinka let him feed her a bite.
It was lovely—toasted oats soaked in honey and cream layered with the sweet raspberries. At the end of the bite, she felt the slight burn of the same whisky she’d drunk earlier.
“You were right,” she said. “I do love it. My father loves to sneak booze into as many recipes as possible too.”
“Rinka is quite a chef herself,” said Alison, coming over to join them. “Did you get enough to eat?” she asked Rinka. “Mab has gotten us some rooms ready for the night, and there’s a hot bath and clean clothes waiting for you if you’re done.”
“That sounds wonderful,” said Rinka.
“Come,” said Alison, “and you can tell me how you came to be here, and how you managed to meet a prince. Good night, your highness. Keir will bring you to your room, if you can manage to tear him away from the other guests, that is.”
“Good night, Idris,” Rinka said, catching herself before she misspoke. There would be no sharing of a bed after all, but that was for the best. How could she dream of sharing a bed with a prince?
“Good night, Rinka,” he said. “Sweet dreams.”
Rinka put her the foolish desires of her heart aside and followed her friend. The promise of a hot bath and a warm bed was enough, she told herself.
She could live without the look he gave her as she walked away, the regret and hope and longing that kept his eyes on her until she’d finally slipped behind a tree and out of view.